Siding is commonly used to cover the exterior surfaces or walls of structures, such as buildings. The siding has typically been fabricated out of ductile metals, such as aluminum, or thermoplastic materials, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
The siding may be formed with one or more sections or courses. Any appropriate number of these courses may often be combined together with horizontal shoulders to form a siding profile. The courses may be downwardly extending sections.
Such siding may typically be installed in multiple rows of siding panels, whereby each row may overlap the adjacent panels. Overlapping the adjacent panels may provide additional protection to the structure from the elements, such as wind, rain, snow and the like. The siding fabricated out of PVC or metal, however, may have very little insulative properties.
To enhance the thermal insulation of building structures, it is common to provide a layer of insulating material between the siding and the building wall or structure. Siding panels may be utilized with insulation panels or layers. The insulation panels may be positioned behind the siding panel and between the siding panel and the structure to increase the insulative properties of the siding. The insulation panels may be fabricated out of a foamed polymeric material, such as expanded polystyrene (EPS), and may be secured to the siding panel with an adhesive.
The insulation panel or layer may both inhibit the transfer of heat across the wall of the structure and also provide support for the siding panel. While utilizing an insulation panel with the siding panel may increase the insulative properties of the siding, there may still be small spaces without insulation or air gaps within the siding. This problem may be further aggravated depending on the type of adhesive used and/or method of applying such adhesive.
In addition, there may be potential leakage problems where the siding panels are joined and/or nailed together, such as a lack of insulation. Because of the flat shapes of the present siding panels, they may not be acceptable for use as molding cavities for processing or fabricating liquid or foam type insulation onto the rear of the siding panel. Since present siding panels lack a cavity suitable for insulation mounting, the only type of insulation that can be added to the present siding panels is pre-cut and pre-formed polystyrene that is attached to the siding panel with an additional adhesive layer.
Thus, current siding panels require the additional adhesive layer to secure the siding panel to the pre-cut and pre-formed insulation layer. There may also be problems related to limited insulation of a polystyrene backing layer to the siding panel.